Former Manager for International Airline Pleads Guilty to Acting as an Agent of the Chinese Government without Notifying the Attorney General

By Bruce Zagaris On April 17, 2019, Ying Lin pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York to serving as an agent for the People’s Republic of China without notifying the Attorney General, by working at the direction and control of military officers assigned to the Permanent Mission of the PRC to the United Nations. Lin, a former manager with an international air carrier headquartered in the PRC (the Air Carrier) improperly facilitated the transport of packages from John F. Kennedy International Airport to the PRC aboard Air Carrier flights as the behest of the PRC military officers and in violation of Transportation Security Administration (TSA) regulations. The defendant’s actions helped Chinese military officers to evade U.S. law enforcement scrutiny of packages that they sent from New York to Beijing. Charges Lin, 48, worked for the Air Carrier from 2002 through Fall 2015 as a counter agent at JFK Airport and from Fall 2015…

The OLC Memo on the Acting Attorney GeneralThe memo is very thorough, and I’m almost convinced that the Whitaker appointment is legal. Here is my remaining constitutional question. I’m still not clear on what the point of a recess […]